Dashcam Installation With a Twist...
Discussion
Bit of a long post, sorry!
The in-laws have a 2017 Nissan Juke and about 9 months ago had a NextBase 322GW fitted, all was well up until the point that someone hit them whilst parked.
They had "Parking Mode" enabled but its not recorded anything, we have the 422GW in our car and parking mode works as it should to the point where shutting a door hard will trigger it. The difference is I connected ours to a permanent live in the fusebox (recommended by NextBase) and their camera switches on and off with the ignition so can only assume the small battery went flat before the car was hit.
Anyway, I offered to look at it and was expecting it being nothing more than moving the piggyback fuse from an ignition live to a permanent one. Nope, the cable runs down the door seal, behind the fusebox cover on the end of the passenger side dash panel and instead of going into the fusebox it snakes it past it, behind the glove box and then disappears into the back of the dash.
Rather than pull half the car apart to locate the connection I decided pull the cigarette lighter fuse in case it had been wired to the back of the socket instead of the fuse, turned ignition on, camera came on but checking the socket with a multi meter confirmed it was dead.
Checked all the fuses with the meter and the middle row is permanent live whilst the other two show no voltage with the ignition off. Ended up pulling all the outer fuses one at a time and turning the ignition on, each and every time the camera powered up and went off with it :-(
Next step is removing the glovebox and trying to physically locate the connection, apart from the parking mode not working properly with an ignition live I'm a bit concerned that whoever fitted it has bypassed the 2A fuse in the hardwire cable - the chances of anything going wrong are pretty slim but the fuse is there for a reason.
Before I start pulling things apart can anyone think of something daft I've missed or why the installer has chosen not use the piggyback and connect to the fusebox in the first place?
The in-laws have a 2017 Nissan Juke and about 9 months ago had a NextBase 322GW fitted, all was well up until the point that someone hit them whilst parked.
They had "Parking Mode" enabled but its not recorded anything, we have the 422GW in our car and parking mode works as it should to the point where shutting a door hard will trigger it. The difference is I connected ours to a permanent live in the fusebox (recommended by NextBase) and their camera switches on and off with the ignition so can only assume the small battery went flat before the car was hit.
Anyway, I offered to look at it and was expecting it being nothing more than moving the piggyback fuse from an ignition live to a permanent one. Nope, the cable runs down the door seal, behind the fusebox cover on the end of the passenger side dash panel and instead of going into the fusebox it snakes it past it, behind the glove box and then disappears into the back of the dash.
Rather than pull half the car apart to locate the connection I decided pull the cigarette lighter fuse in case it had been wired to the back of the socket instead of the fuse, turned ignition on, camera came on but checking the socket with a multi meter confirmed it was dead.
Checked all the fuses with the meter and the middle row is permanent live whilst the other two show no voltage with the ignition off. Ended up pulling all the outer fuses one at a time and turning the ignition on, each and every time the camera powered up and went off with it :-(
Next step is removing the glovebox and trying to physically locate the connection, apart from the parking mode not working properly with an ignition live I'm a bit concerned that whoever fitted it has bypassed the 2A fuse in the hardwire cable - the chances of anything going wrong are pretty slim but the fuse is there for a reason.
Before I start pulling things apart can anyone think of something daft I've missed or why the installer has chosen not use the piggyback and connect to the fusebox in the first place?
Paradigital, I've pulled every fuse that isn't a permanent live and the camera still powers on and off with the ignition. Not checked the ODB-II port though, if that is not fused or fused away from the one on the passenger side then that would make sense.
Ham_And_Jam, would be much easier but sadly the 12v > 5v module and low voltage cut off are about 6" inch away from the wherever its connected, the cable then exits this as more or less a USB charging lead. Suppose that for £20 or thereabouts a replacement cable costs it might be worth saving the drama of taking things apart.
Ham_And_Jam, would be much easier but sadly the 12v > 5v module and low voltage cut off are about 6" inch away from the wherever its connected, the cable then exits this as more or less a USB charging lead. Suppose that for £20 or thereabouts a replacement cable costs it might be worth saving the drama of taking things apart.
Just an update / conclusion...
Ended up removing the glove box to get a better look at things and the installer did an "interesting" job by:
Cutting the bullet connector off the power adaptor / low battery monitor and twisting + taping it to an 5A inline fuse instead of the 2A supplied with the hardwire kit.
This fuse and the rest of the hardwire kit was then supplied from the back of the fuse box by simply cutting in to the wiring harness(!) and twisting the wires together. It looks like they made some attempt at soldering the lot together at least.
The ground spade was connected to the metal tube that runs along the top of the dash but despite there being lots of existing screw points or places that a nut and bolt could have been used or it looks like they drilled a small hole for a self tapper.
So overall a quality job that cost them an extra £100 over the price of the camera :-(
After cutting the inline fuse off the messed about wire from the back of the fuse box was covered in a couple of layers of heat-shrink, its not pretty but better than using insulation tape.
As luck would have our car uses different sized fuses so I had a spare piggyback, didn't have any male bullet crimp connectors so removed the female from the piggyback and soldered them together.
The ground is now secured by an existing screw to same bracket that supports the fuse box.
End result is the camera connected to a permanent live using a 2A piggyback supplied from the trailer / tow bar (not fitted) fuse and can at last use the parking mode which was one of the main reasons they purchased the camera in the first place.
Ended up removing the glove box to get a better look at things and the installer did an "interesting" job by:
Cutting the bullet connector off the power adaptor / low battery monitor and twisting + taping it to an 5A inline fuse instead of the 2A supplied with the hardwire kit.
This fuse and the rest of the hardwire kit was then supplied from the back of the fuse box by simply cutting in to the wiring harness(!) and twisting the wires together. It looks like they made some attempt at soldering the lot together at least.
The ground spade was connected to the metal tube that runs along the top of the dash but despite there being lots of existing screw points or places that a nut and bolt could have been used or it looks like they drilled a small hole for a self tapper.
So overall a quality job that cost them an extra £100 over the price of the camera :-(
After cutting the inline fuse off the messed about wire from the back of the fuse box was covered in a couple of layers of heat-shrink, its not pretty but better than using insulation tape.
As luck would have our car uses different sized fuses so I had a spare piggyback, didn't have any male bullet crimp connectors so removed the female from the piggyback and soldered them together.
The ground is now secured by an existing screw to same bracket that supports the fuse box.
End result is the camera connected to a permanent live using a 2A piggyback supplied from the trailer / tow bar (not fitted) fuse and can at last use the parking mode which was one of the main reasons they purchased the camera in the first place.
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